James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish expatriate novelist and poet of the 20th century. He is best known for his landmark novel Ulysses (1922) and its controversial successor Finnegans Wake (1939), as well as the short story collection Dubliners (1914) and the semi-autobiographical novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916). Although he spent most of his adult life outside Ireland, Joyce's psychological and fictional universe is firmly rooted in his native Dublin, the city which provides the settings and much of the subject matter for all his fiction. In particular, his tempestuous early relationship with the Irish Roman Catholic Church is reflected through a similar inner conflict in his recurrent alter ego Stephen Dedalus. As the result of his minute attentiveness to a personal locale and his self-imposed exile and influence throughout Europe, notably in Paris, Joyce became paradoxically one of the most cosmopolitan yet one of the most regionally focused of all the English language writers of his time.
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WINDS OF MAY
by James Joyce
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WINDS of May, that dance on the sea,
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Dancing a ring-around in glee
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From furrow to furrow, while overhead
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The foam flies up to be garlanded,
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In silvery arches spanning the air,
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Saw you my true love anywhere?
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Welladay! Welladay!
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For the winds of May!
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Love is unhappy when love is away!
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WHO GOES AMID THE GREEN WOOD
by James Joyce
- WHO goes amid the green wood
- With springtide all adorning her?
- Who goes amid the merry green wood
- To make it merrier?
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- Who passes in the sunlight
- By ways that know the light footfall?
- Who passes in the sweet sunlight
- With mien so virginal?
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- The ways of all the woodland
- Gleam with a soft and golden fire--
- For whom does all the sunny woodland
- Carry so brave attire?
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- O, it is for my true love
- The woods their rich apparel wear--
- O, it is for my own true love,
- That is so young and fair.
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AT THAT HOUR WHEN ALL THINGS HAVE REPOSE
by James Joyce
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AT that hour when all things have repose,
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O lonely watcher of the skies,
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Do you hear the night wind and the sighs
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Of harps playing unto Love to unclose
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The pale gates of sunrise?
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When all things repose do you alone
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Awake to hear the sweet harps play
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To Love before him on his way,
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And the night wind answering to antiphon
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Till night is overgone?
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Play on, invisible harps, unto Love,
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Whose way in heaven is aglow
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At that hour when soft lights come and go,
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Soft sweet music in the air above
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And in the earth below.
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A Memory of the Players in a Mirror at Midnight
by James Joyce
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They mouth love's language. Gnash
The thirteen teeth
Your lean jaws grin with. Lash
Your itch and quailing, nude greed of the flesh.
Love's breath in you is stale, worded or sung,
As sour as cat's breath,
Harsh of tongue.
This grey that stares
Lies not, stark skin and bone.
Leave greasy lips their kissing. None
Will choose her what you see to mouth upon.
Dire hunger holds his hour.
Pluck forth your heart, saltblood, a fruit of tears.
Pluck and devour!
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A Flower Given to My Daughter
by James Joyce
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Frail the white rose and frail are
Her hands that gave
Whose soul is sere and paler
Than time's wan wave.
Rosefrail and fair -- yet frailest
A wonder wild
In gentle eyes thou veilest,
My blueveined child.
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Again!
Come, give, yield all your strength to me!
From far a low word breathes on the breaking brain
Its cruel calm, submission's misery,
Gentling her awe as to a soul predestined.
Cease, silent love! My doom!
Blind me with your dark nearness, O have mercy, beloved enemy of my will!
I dare not withstand the cold touch that I dread.
Draw from me still
My slow life! Bend deeper on me, threatening head,
Proud by my downfall, remembering, pitying
Him who is, him who was!
Again!
Together, folded by the night, they lay on earth. I hear
From far her low word breathe on my breaking brain.
Come! I yield. Bend deeper upon me! I am here.
Subduer, do not leave me! Only joy, only anguish,
Take me, save me, soothe me, O spare me!
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James Joyce, ca 1918.
(This picture is in the public domain.)

James Joyce in 1926. Author: Bernice Abbott
(Used under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.)

Joyce's statue in Trieste, Italy. Author: IgorTrieste
(Used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 .)

James Joyce statue next to O'Connell street in Dublin.
(Used under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.)

Bust of James Joyce in St. Stephen's Green, Dublin.
(Used under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License )

Joyce as depicted on the Irish £10 banknote, issued 1993–2002.
(Used under the terms of the Central Bank of Ireland.)
 
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